It was relinked from the front page of Ariga on March 22 1997, following a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv Cafe on March 21 1997.

Israel and its Arab neighbors are engaged in a meta-historical process, for the first time confronting the question of where exactly should the geopolitical borders of the Holy Land be drawn so that Israel can attain what it has long wanted and long needed -- peace with its neighbors; and so the Arabs can attain what they have long needed, if not wanted: an evolution toward democracy.

This effort is the natural outcome of transglobal forces ranging from the end of the Cold War to the development of the Internet; from the inherent failure of a democracy to sustain a military occupation, and the inherent incompetence of closed markets, run by dictatorships, to sustain economic development for their masses.

Terrorism is a major obstacle on this route. But it is not the only challenge. The balancing act between the need to accelerate economic development and the conservation of ecological resources; the harsh realities of the poverty of the Arab world's political economy, so reliant on oil rather than production, and dictatorship rather than democracy; the existential Israeli questions regarding the nature of our own society as a State for Jews or a Jewish State -- all these are on the agenda.

Terrorism, in particular the horror of suicide bombers, is by virtue of its drama, the most immediate challenge. The instantaneous communications of the end of the 20th century makes the terrorism tangible to the rest of the world. Terrorism is as international as CNN, and even when it seems to be about the most local issues -- the Oklahoma bombing comes to mind -- it is really about a world war between the two main forces on the planet that have been in conflict for all of human history, reason and irrationality.

The very technology that makes such immediate connections possible, also carries the danger of creating an historical amnesia. Focused on current events, the historical patterns are forgotten; intent on bringing the latest nuance of policy and reaction to an event from only a few minutes before, the background to the events fades; so insistent that that history move as quickly as the satellited images, we forget that the events of this week, this month, this year, are but another stage on a much longer path.

We are facing an enemy that threatens not only Israeli citizens, but indeed the entire Western World. Religious fundamentalist and militancy is the culture most threatened by the very technology that makes it possible to send this message around the world in seconds, and which is rapidly becoming the platform for the commerce of the next century. For if there is one great enemy of extreme religious fundamentalism, it is the unshackled free marketplace of ideas in which reason has an upper hand over intolerance, and skepticism is a more useful tool for survival than blind faith.

In the short run, it appears the suicidists have the upper hand. But their very actions prove their desperation, their pathetic paranoia, their essential loneliness. The challenge for civilized society is to deny terrorists the privelige of sharing their own despair.

As for us, so experienced in these affairs that within six hours of a bombing that effectively closed the largest mall in Tel Aviv, traffic (mostly sightseers, for now), our concerns lie inward. While the security services and the politicians work on their solutions to the immediate problem -- and there are solutions, mostly in the increasing isolation of the terrorists in Palestinian society, combined with effective police work -- there are those among us who in the name of revenge succumb to the goals of the terrorists.

Those who prefer to see the Arab world as a monolithic entity poised constantly to destroy the Jews, those who regard the "goyim" as an eternal enemy to be feared or despised, cheated or defeated, those who have become as nationalistic as any Michigan militaman, will appear to move closer to center stage.

Some of their spokespeople appear reasonable -- what can be more reasonable, for example, than the idea that Israel wait until the Arabs have democracy before Israel makes peace with them, or in the case of America, believing that by pretending the outside world doesn't exist, it will disappear.

Behind this reasoning lies a dangerous assumption that threatens Israel far more than our enemies threaten us. If there is a meaning to the Zionist mission, it is that Jews, as a sovereign community, take responsibility for our destiny.

By giving up the effort to find ways to peace because we are opposed by forces of hatred that with each act of desperation become an ever smaller minority, we would be descending into a passivity that would remove from our control our destiny, letting terrorists set the agenda for us.

The terrorists want nothing more than to see us in tears, desperate, hysterical, out of control. Perhaps they laugh at the dead bodies, but they take their real satisfaction in the telvision images of the hysterical mobs shouting "Yigal Amir" or "Baruch Goldstein." Nothing so pleases a terrorist as to prove that his enemy is no different from him, using the same methods if not for the same alleged goals.

Yes, as a result of the suicide bombings, the groundswell of support for the peace process that revealed itself at the rally that ended in Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, and that event's aftermath, has waned. This was a natural reaction to the events.

No less natural is the political opposition's dependency on fear as their main selling point. "You're afraid," they'll say to the public, "because this government is not doing its job, indeed, is doing its job wrong."

But that opposition line is doomed, for it implies surrendering to the terrorists what the terrorists want the most -- our fear -- and it assumes that the war against terrorism can never be won. That defeatism is hidden behind the bravado of cries for revenge, but it is defeatist nonetheless.

The truth is that Israel is a living example of the ability to win the war against terrorism -- not only because of the battles fought by its soldiers but because in the last five decades of statehood we have flourished, refusing to give in to the idea that fear should rule our lives.

Our society is now engaged in a crucial process. Can we maintain our democracy, with its natural inclination to make peace with our neighbors, and at the same time use all the means neccessary to make the suicide bombers feel frightened, not us. It is a test of national will, and a test of our democracy. If we can survive this crisis, not only will we be strengthened, but our erstwhile partners to peace will be strengthened in their effort to reach democracy.

If you would like to express your support for the people of Israel at this difficult hour, go to http://shani.net/terror